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Prom 5: BBC Philharmonic/ Noseda at the Albert Hall

In this lean, unsentimental performance the urbanity of the orchestral playing was beautifully contrasted with the votive intensity of the chorus

Anna Picard

July 21 2016, 12:01am, The Times

Conductor Gianandrea Noseda’s performance of the Missa solemnis was lean and unsentimentalBBC/Mark Allan

★★★☆☆“From the heart — may it return — to the heart”. Beethoven’s inscription on the score of the Missa solemnis is a warning to listen and listen well. Completed the year before his Ninth Symphony, the Mass reaches up and up with similar disregard for the comfort of the tenors and sopranos.

Both works play with traditional orders of high and low art and scale. Where they part company is in their treatment of human foibles. Even before the bass soloist sings, the Ninth enjoins us to be our best, to try to meet the splendour of the natural world. The Missa solemnis instead shakes its head in pity. Its expectations of us are notably low, and as the choir sings the word pacem we…

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